With most of us spending more time in the house these days, it's essential to find ways to improve health and fitness at home. This article shares our top ten tips to help you ‘stay home stay healthy.’
1: Exercise Every Day
As we are spending much more time at home, exercise needs to become a top priority to maintain our wellbeing. Regular exercise boosts energy levels and mood, improves cardiovascular fitness, slows the aging process, and ramps up the immune system.
It's easy to make exercise a daily habit with the 30 Day Fitness app because it contains quick workouts you can easily fit into your daily routine. Plus, there's no need to go to the gym as you can work out anywhere, anytime, with no equipment.
2: Stretch to Improve Flexibility
As we age, our bodies become stiffer and less flexible. This inflexibility can hinder our regular daily movement and even cause discomfort and injury. To ensure your body is as healthy as possible, especially if your job is sedentary, create a daily stretching routine.
Yoga postures are the best for flexibility because they stretch the outer muscles as well as the deeper fascia and ligaments. But if yoga is not your cup of tea, try some simple runners stretches instead. The most critical areas to keep flexible are your back, hamstrings, shoulders, and hips.
3: Take the Stairs
A classic piece of fitness advice is to take the stairs rather than the elevator. However, for those working from home who do not have as many opportunities to make this switch, you may like to consider using your stairs as a piece of workout equipment instead. Set yourself a daily goal of trips up and down the stairs each day. Stair climbing doubles as cardio fitness and resistance training, so it's a great all-round exercise to add to your 'stay home stay healthy' regime.
4: Walk During Meetings
Another easy way to get more exercise into your day is to walk during your meetings. If you can take the call while walking outside, that's fabulous, but if you need to be at home, you can still walk around the room or the house as you talk. This activity will add lots of extra steps to your daily step count without taking more time out of your day.
5: Sit on a Swiss Ball
If walking is not possible during your meeting as you need to be on a video call, why not switch your office chair for a Swiss ball during your appointment? Sitting on a Swiss ball is not recommended for long periods due to the strain it puts on the shoulders and arms as you type. However, there are many benefits of sitting on one for a short time, such as building core, back, foot, and leg strength. A 30-60 minute session per day is the perfect length and so sitting on the ball while in a meeting works brilliantly.
6: Eat More Greens
Green vegetables, leafy greens, in particular, are jam-packed with nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, fiber, water, and phytochemicals. They help the body to function correctly and are among the most nutrient-dense foods you can eat, along with superfoods. Try to add green vegetables to every meal. Add a handful of kale or spinach to your daily smoothie, a cup of rocket with your lunch, and a side of broccoli or Brussel sprouts with your dinner.
7: Eat Superfoods
Superfoods are nutritionally-dense ingredients that you can easily add to your everyday meals. Blueberries, flax meal, and avocado are all great smoothie additions. Goji berries and walnuts make a tasty mid-morning snack or oatmeal topper. Maca is a Peruvian superfood that helps stamina and endurance and is packed with potassium, calcium, B vitamins, copper and iron. It is delicious sprinkled on yogurt and oatmeal and blended into smoothies.
8: Drink More Water
Studies show that 75% of the population is dehydrated. Dehydration causes significant health issues such as exhaustion, headache, dizziness, muscle weakness, constipation, confusion, inability to focus, kidney stones, hypertension, urinary tract infections, over-eating, and weight gain. Every day, aim to drink between half an ounce and an ounce of water for each pound you weigh.
9: Meditate
Meditation helps to boost your mood, energy levels, concentration, and resilience to stress. You don't need to do anything too complicated either. Simply spending a few minutes each day in a calm environment focusing on your breathing can bring fantastic results. If you would like a more structured practice, set a timer on your phone for five minutes and count your breaths in sets of ten until the timer ends.
10: Get More Sleep
Along with chronic dehydration, most of the population is chronically sleep-deprived, with insufficient sleep considered a public health issue in the US. Over 70% of adults report getting less than the recommended 7-9 hours sleep per night. Sleep deprivation dangers include premature aging, food cravings, weight gain, brain fog, lack of energy, decreased exercise, hypertension, diabetes, heart attack, and stroke.
Bonus Tip: Challenge Yourself
If you want to be really healthy at home and improve your health and fitness levels, why not take on a 30-day challenge? The 30 Day Fitness app contains expertly-designed challenges that work on a specific body area or provide a total body tune-up. Each workout takes just 15 minutes to complete, and your progress is ticked off the calendar as you move through the challenge - great for keeping you inspired and motivated.
You don't need any equipment to participate in a 30-day challenge, and you can work out at home, in the garden, or a park. It's even more motivating if you do the challenge with a friend because you can keep each other accountable. In just 30 days, you will have cultivated a regular fitness habit and achieved fantastic results. It's a total win-win! Download the 30 Day Fitness app today to help you 'stay home stay healthy!'
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